How Trump, Musk, and DOGE Butchered the US Government
A new book from Sasha Abramsky
Nation contributing writer Sasha Abramsky is out now with American Carnage: How Trump, Musk, and DOGE Butchered the US Government: the first book-length reckoning with the consequences of Donald Trump’s war on the so-called “deep state,” told through the experiences of nearly a dozen fired federal workers as their lives are thrown into chaos.
Already a Los Angeles Timesbestseller, be sure to purchase your own copy from OR Books today.
American Carnage follows eleven federal workers, in eight government agencies, from the time they were told they were fired in the early weeks of Donald Trump’s second presidential administration through to the summer of 2025. With Trump having empowered the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, and his Department of Government Efficiency, to make dramatic cuts to many of the country’s most important agencies, what unfolded in these months was a cascading tragedy of historic proportions.
Their stories, which show a country in a profound moment of crisis and dislocation, are America’s stories. What happened to them — the bullying, the intimidation, the deliberate removal of financial stability — also happened to hundreds of thousands of other employees. A fierce reckoning with the intimate and far-reaching effects of these layoffs, both on the individuals who lost their jobs and on the millions of Americans who found their access to basic government services curtailed, American Carnage is the first book-length account of how these cuts dulled and denuded our city on the hill, leaving a morally impoverished landscape in their wake.